Unicorns can be Purple
by avanti90
Summary: The winterfair ball is coming to an end, and Aral is nowhere to be found...


**Unicorns Can Be Purple**

"Milady?" Cordelia turned around to find Pym standing at her shoulder. "The groundcar is waiting."

Cordelia looked up at him in relief and exhaustion. Miles and Ekaterin were still dancing, she saw, and so were Gregor and Laisa. They would probably go on for several hours. But she and Aral were long past the age when they could dance their way into the morning. Midnight had been their limit for the last few years, and these days Aral was generally tired long before that. She glanced around the room. She had expected to find Aral sitting in his usual corner surrounded by old war veterans, but there was no sign of him in the sea of shining red-and-blues. Where was he?

She went up and tapped Kou on the shoulder. "Kou, have you seen Aral?"

"Ah?" A slightly drunk Kou looked up at her, blinking in confusion. "Oh. Cordelia." He waved a hand vaguely in the direction of the stairs. "He went up there, I think."

Cordelia left him with a smile and made her way up the stairs. The Vorbarra armsmen admitted her to the private wing, and she walked slowly down the silent corridor. All the rooms were dark tonight, but there was light spilling out of one door ahead of her. As she approached the nursery, she could hear Aral's voice. "And so Vorthalia slew the unicorn at last," he was saying, "and the folk of the village were saved once again."

Cordelia stopped in the doorway, looking at the scene before her. Aral was there, sitting cross-legged on the floor in the middle of the room, with a gigantic book spread out in front of him, surrounded by Sasha, Helen, and the little Crown Prince. Baby Princess Kareen was curled up in Aral's lap, sucking her thumb and staring curiously at the pictures.

She moved silently into the room. A black and white Lord Vorthalia adorned the page, his sword out, facing down some sort of mythical Barrayaran monster with a horn in the center of its head. There was an awful lot of paint on the page. And much more on the floor. And the walls. And the kids. And Aral's uniform. And Aral's hair. And Aral. Oh dear.

The maids were going to have a heart attack over the uniform, she decided, surveying the carnage. The blue streak did look rather nice on his white hair, though. Maybe she could talk him into keeping it.

"I'm telling you, I _know!_" insisted Helen, sitting up and crossing her arms, "unicorns are white!"

The prince waved a large brush in the air, splashing yet more drops of paint on everyone. "_This_ unicorn," he declared firmly, "is going to be purple."

"Maybe we could make it very very light yellow?" suggested Sasha, ever the voice of compromise.

Helen threw her hands up in indignation. "That's just _stupid_! Whoever heard of a purple unicorn?"

Prince Aral looked back at her stubbornly. "Kareen likes purple." All eyes turned to Kareen. Clearly, if Kareen liked something, she must have it. On this one principle all the older children were agreed.

Aral tickled Kareen under the chin. She laughed gleefully, waving her hands in the air. He caught them in his own, his old weathered hand engulfing her tiny fists completely. "Purple?" he asked. "Glug!" answered Kareen happily.

There promptly ensued a heated argument over whether 'glug' meant yes or no, which ended with the question being referred to the highest authority present. The Viceroy considered his judgement gravely for a while, then declared solemnly that 'glug' meant another round of chocolate ice cream for everyone, thus ending the argument at once. Cordelia cleared her throat pointedly. Ekaterin was very particular about the children's diet, and from the look of the room Aral had already stuffed them all with enough glucose to feed a small army.

Aral looked up from the ground and saw her, and grinned at once, and in that moment the smile lit up his face like the sun. _Oh,_ thought Cordelia helplessly, feeling the answering smile spread across her face all by itself. Oh. Almost forty years, and that smile could still undo her completely. Oh, well. Gregor, Laisa, Miles and Ekaterin were all busy downstairs, so why not? Let Aral get away with doing what he loved best -spoiling the kids rotten and letting their long-suffering parents deal with the consequences later.

Besides, Miles at least deserved it.

Aral stood up slowly and came over to her, and his arm slipped around her waist. She looked down. There was a bright blue handprint on her gown now, and Alys would take one look and give her That Glare. "Dear Captain," he whispered in her ear. "Is it time to leave already?"

Cordelia looked back up at the children, happily engaged in getting ice cream all over their mouths, their clothes, Lord Vorthalia, and what was rapidly becoming the world's first chocolate-colored unicorn, and suddenly she wasn't tired anymore.

"Oh, no," she answered, turning to Aral and planting a kiss on his multicolored face, "Not at all."


End file.
